We look at virtual visits to our department by prospective doctoral students, announce a break on Monday from the speaker series, and review the expectations to handle the “lost week of instruction” caused by the winter disaster.
Contents
CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE
“New Year … Kinda”
I know it’s March, but this is the season when we begin to turn our eye to the next, new academic year. Last week, we shared the Fall 2021 course offerings. Soon, rooms will be assigned for those classes and students will have the chance to enroll in them. We’ve also just started making offers of admission to the top applicants to our doctoral program with the goal of attracting them to join us for matriculation in Fall 2021. This is the season of offers and visits as students begin to think about which program(s) are right for them, and which one is best for them. This is when we plant for the new (academic) year.
Choosing a doctoral program is a tough decision. First you have to get into one. Sharing my own experience, I applied to 11 and was admitted to 2 (back in 1997-1998). The fact that I got into 2 frustrated me … but probably not for the reason you think. It’s not that I was disappointed that I didn’t get into more programs; it’s that I was frustrated that I was faced with a choice. I really just needed to get into one to be happy. Getting into two then required a process.
The best advice I got about that process was from a senior mentor of mine who told me, “Go visit the school, meet directly with the graduate students with no faculty around, and look them in the eyes … are they happy or sad?” It’s fantastic advice, and it certainly worked well for me. I was very fortunate to have been able to select the University of Wisconsin-Madison for my Ph.D., both because of the shining eyes of my fellow graduate students and the quality of research in which I was invited to participate. I echo this advice to anyone out there, be they current SMU undergraduate students hunting for the right Ph.D. program or prospective Ph.D. students considering our own program for themselves. Even over Zoom, you can tell if a graduate student is happy or sad.
This coming week is something of a strange pause for us, given all the crazy events from “Snowvid” (the winter disaster two weeks ago, paired with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic), to seminars, classes, shifting schedules, and meetings. We don’t have a speaker series event on Monday, so reclaim the time for yourself on March 8! We do remind members of the Texas Section of the American Physical Society to vote in the ongoing election, and consider voting for our own Ph.D. student Ishwita Saikia for the graduate student at-large member of the TSAPS. We have a March physics challenge from The Physics Teacher journal to offer all of you. Finally, faculty are reminded about how to make up some of the lost teaching days from two weeks ago.
Sincerely,
Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics |
DEPARTMENT VIEWS
No Speaker Series Event on Monday, March 8
We’ll take a break from the Physics Speaker Series on Monday, March 8 before we go into a series of talks from SMU faculty on their research. You can use this time to relax, catch up on things, or rediscover that love of decoupage.
Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!
You can catch up on the Spring 2021 (and Fall 2020!) Physics Speaker Series by checking out your favorite subjects from archives! Explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter or other novel particles or forces, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your personal devices! Enjoy our archive of the Physics Speaker Series Talks below.
FACULTY NEWS
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!
The Lost Week of Instruction – Next Steps
Faculty are reminded that the Provost has now clarified how we are to make up teaching days lost during the Texas winter disaster a couple of weeks ago. In short, April 2 (Good Friday) is now no longer an SMU holiday and is reclaimed for teaching as a “Tuesday.” Students who wish to utilize a religious observance accommodation for that day, however, can still do so and are supposed to indicate their intention to do this (by today, ideally). In addition, May 4 (formerly a reading day) is reclaimed as a “Wednesday” teaching day.
Faculty should have, but the end of today, revised their syllabus, uploaded it to Canvas and to the SMU syllabus library, and notified their students of the changes to accommodate these reclaimed teaching days. The Department Chair is to be notified once you have made these updates.
For more details about this, please see the Provost’s letter from earlier this week.
STAFF NEWS
Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of March 8
The in-office staff schedule for the week of March 8 is nominally as follows:
- Monday: Michele
- Tuesday: Lacey
- Wednesday: Michele
- Thursday: Michele
- Friday: Lacey
Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.
Full staff in-office calendar for March:
STUDENT NEWS
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!
Prospective Doctoral Students Welcomed to SMU
This is the season when Ph.D. programs across the nation have sent out offers of admission and prospective doctoral students are making (virtual) visits to institutions and thinking about where they want to pursue the next phase of their careers. We were pleased to welcome to SMU prospective physics Ph.D. students considering offers of admission to our program. It is always exciting to be able to share the big picture of our department, provide time for current students to interact with prospective students, and facilitate meetings with faculty whose work they find potentially interesting.
The SMU Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies organizes the large-scale visiting day for prospective students across all Ph.D. programs. Departments are invited to host programming and events from 1-4pm during that visiting day (March 5, in this case). We were very pleased to be able to offer a dialog about our doctoral program with students newly offered admission to our program.
Final Reminder: Ishwita Saikia Running for the Student Member-at-Large Position of the Texas Section of the APS!
Third-year PhD student Ishwita Saikia was nominated for, and is now standing for election to, the Texas Section of the American Physical Society‘s Executive Committee. She is running for Student Member-at-Large. All members of the TSAPS are eligible and encouraged to vote. Voting is open through March 10, 2021 at 11:59:00 PM Central Time. As long as you become a member of APS and the TSAPS before voting closes, you should be eligible to vote.
In the department, Ishwita has served as the physics representative to the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) and presently serves as the graduate student representative on the Physics Chair’s Student Advisory Council, which works with the Department Chair to identify issues that affect students and facilitate departmental action to address those issues.
ALUMNI NEWS
If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.
THE BACK PAGE
March Physics Challenge!
SPS Faculty Advisor and our department’s informal “Puzzle Master,” Prof. Randy Scalise, invites you to try to solve this month’s physics challenge from The Physics Teacher. The first correct solution he receives (scalise@physics.smu.edu) from a student member of our Society of Physics Students will be awarded a prize. The winner will get to select from the following four books,
- Gleick, J. “Chaos: Making a New Science“.
- Crease, R. P. and Mann, Charles C. “The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics“.
- Thorne, K. “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy“.
- Greene, B. “The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality“.
Solutions must be complete enough to understand your strategy, reasoning, and methods; providing answers with no explanations are not acceptable. Dr. Scalise urges submitters who believe they have the correct answer to, of course, also submit their solution to The Physics Teacher using the email address challenges@aapt.org. Make sure to follow the journal’s guidelines for submissions (see below). The deadline is the last day of this month.
